At least three known medieval documents from County Derry have tantalisingly disappeared without trace: The Book of Doiré [Derry]; the Book of Flann of Dungeimhin [Dungiven]; and the Duil Droma Ceata [Book of Drumceatt, Limavady].

We’ll probably never know what was in them. But similar manuscripts written 500-1500AD recorded notable lives, events, laws, stories, histories, genealogies, poetry, prayers - even prophecies. Some gave a year-by-year record of events as did England’s contemporary Anglo-Saxon Chronicles.

At Irish Script on Screen www.isos.dias.ie, you can see about 500 hundred medieval Irish manuscripts that have survived loss or destruction. But thousands of annals, histories and manuscripts, have been lost.

Fortunately, however, because ancient scribes often copied other sources, perhaps 80% of the sagas survived - if not the records of precise historical events.

'The Annals of Ulster' were mostly written by Scribe Ruaidhrí Ó Luinín, in Co Fermanagh.

placeholder image — 'The Annals of Ulster' were mostly written by Scribe Ruaidhrí Ó Luinín, in Co Fermanagh.

Loss of ancient documents is common. The Greek dramatist Euripides (c480-c406BC) is believed to have written more than 90 plays - but only 18 have survived. The Great Library of Alexandria, Egypt, more than once suffered losses totalling tens of thousands of manuscripts.

Monasteries in ancient Ireland were centres of education. Aldhelm of Malmesbury studied in Ireland.

His letter (c688 AD) praises the Irish schools and tells that they taught grammar (i.e. Latin classics), geometry, and natural science, as well as studying the scriptures.

The Annals of Ulster name over 86 scribes in monastic schools between 700AD and 1,000AD.

And it was scribes, of course, who, 1,000 years ago in Derry, Dungiven and Drumceatt, wrote those lost manuscripts.

[“Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History” by Eugene O’Curry: 1861 & 1995].